


Battle Born

by sempervirentis



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: A bit of canon divergence, Canon Universe, Character Study, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26950255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sempervirentis/pseuds/sempervirentis
Summary: In his last fleeting thoughts, before he lost consciousness due to the blood loss, he’d wondered if he would live for the promises he had made to himself—or: Fuegoleon Vermillion was a fighter, even if he had to adapt his very self for battle, again and again.
Relationships: Nozel Silva/Fuegoleon Vermillion
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	1. Show your face

**Author's Note:**

> Look. I know what's on canon. I ignore it because I can, of course. I have a ton of thoughts about Fuegoleon, so I gave myself permission to sidetrack a bit and have this romantic, uh, character study of sorts? I'm weak for magical creatures. I decided to cut it in chapters because I just can't wait.
> 
> Unbeta'ed. All mistakes are my very own.

The right sleeve of his shirt flapped awkwardly against his side, upwards and aimless, every time the wind sped past him. Now at ease, without the need to release mana, the fire his new arm was made of reverted to settle deep within the space Salamander has claimed as its own. In the midst of the battle, a limb made of Salamander's burning will have been helpful for the upper hand, but it didn't take much thought to realize how problematic such a thing of sheer fire could be. 

Fuegoleon was a quick learner. Everyone in the Vermillion House was, be it partly due to the competitive trait they shared or just how they adapted to relentless training. It took him only a handful of beats, upon waking up, to understand his new distribution. The miss of his balance. Nevertheless, that fell to lesser thoughts after his desire of fire manifested his arm, through the unaltered power of Salamander. 

He still reeled from the loss, Fuegoleon understood now— something that acutely came to him when he tried to call the fire arm back, and he failed to tame the flames to a more manageable glow, akin to his sister's fists. 

Salamander was quiet all the while. It wasn't a bother for the spirit, witnessing Fuegoleon struggling to refine the manifestation. Notwithstanding that it didn't talk, Fuegoleon felt the slit pupils dragging across him. Inside his conscious mind's eye, and on the reverse of his skin, rooted where he felt his mana flowed and ebbed. It was as though his body wasn't his alone anymore. 

There was a small respite between the reconstruction and rescue efforts that underwent immediately after the battle. As if a collective thought, when nighttime swallowed the remnants of natural light, most of the magic knights retired to what was left of their homes. A lot of the lamplights installed in the streets were destroyed, too, so what didn't reach the fire of the lamps was reserved for the dim moonlight, obscured by clouds. 

The Vermillion estate in the Clover castle, much like most of the castle itself, was left shaken to its brick core. The castle had taken the greatest brunt of the onslaught of violence, but even with its ruination, amidst it all, it survived a downfall they all fought to prevent. It posed no more the proud glory as it stood watchful over the kingdom, but the foundations still remained, a meaning Fuegoleon didn't let sit idle. 

A big chunk of the magic knights' sleeping quarters was nothing but piles upon piles of debris, surely the place some fights started from, after the awakening of the elves. Fuegoleon offered his personal quarters to the ones left without a place to sleep; at first, they refused out of respect for their captain, but this wasn't something he was placing as a suggestion. They fell into line when he declared his decision wasn't up for discussion. 

Whilst Leopold was making sure the servants were found and alive, Fuegoleon retired to a smaller room farther from his quarters and adjacent to the library. This was the room he slept in at the beginning of his training, when he couldn't drag himself, sleep-deprived and worn out, to his own room from the library after another full day of reading about techniques and practical training.

The servants kept it tidy well after he moved to the principal quarters, at the heart of the state, as the Head of the Vermillion. In truth, it was meant to be Mereoleona’s room. She understood family duty, even unattached to the magic knights and the Crimson Lions as she was, but her succession in line lacked the strength to anchor her to the estate. She knew too well Fuegoleon would pick what was left in her wake, unable to ignore the responsibilities that being born under a role entailed.

Leopold took after Fuegoleon, too— he used the quarters when crossing the estate to his room wasn’t quite the nice thought. After he let himself in and called forth a flame for a lone lamplight, he stood in front of a mirror the servants must have thought would be of use here. The right sleeve of his shirt dangled limply, dragging the shoulder of the sleeve down. 

Fuegoleon closed his eyes. He felt the warmth spread from within his ribcage, expanding outwards to his abdomen, his cheeks, the place where his arm should have been, until he opened his eyes and inspected the glow radiating from his body, akin to a halo of light, stirring the mana surrounding him. He frowned, letting himself search deeper. A crackling sound made the mana swirl wildly for a beat; in his reflection, the glow rippled bigger and bigger, until Salamander emanated from inside him. 

The spirit accommodated to the closed location, now smaller, and sat on his left shoulder. It weighed nothing, but its spiritual pressure made Fuegoleon adjust his stance, settling more into the sole of his feet. 

Salamander’s tail swayed languidly, cutting through the mana as if a knife. Fuegoleon pushed through his silence, albeit awkwardly. 

“Thank you,” he started, his voice barely raised over a whisper, “for choosing me. I— I don’t think I would be awake now, if it weren’t for you.” 

Salamander hadn’t said a single spoken word to him. It just communicated to him, poured the thoughts inside the depth of his mind, of what he needed to know on the battlefield. It was with a start that the resounding voice of Salamander reached him, a tone that sounded like the grinding of rocks, booming, gravelly. 

“Your will stays true over the fire-keepers.” Salamander pronounced slowly, as if considering whether the occasion was worthy of speech or not. Its voice alone eddied the mana away. “Mana reacted to you, as you stood tethered in between worlds. It is not your fate to remain dormant.”

Fuegoleon was able to recall the feeling of a deep slumber, and little more. He had been enclosed in a dreamless state, dark and absolute, without recollection of sinking into it nor finally resurfacing. For him, it had lasted as long as he could withhold a breath. It was this lack of awareness that terrified him the most, this absence of life, of dreams, of anything connected to this world.

He couldn’t quite grasp why he was being given this second chance. It lied uneasily in his gut, that it was written for him things he might not be prepared for— just as he hadn’t been prepared to guard his own life. Fate was what you made of it, at the end of the day, and this was a thought he liked to base on for his approach to life, but the universe and magic itself were greater beings than your whim alone. 

Salamander didn’t speak any further, to which Fuegoleon realized, very belatedly, that he hadn’t answered the spirit. If Salamander was aware of his restlessness, then the spirit decidedly ignored it. It continued resting on his shoulder while Fuegoleon flickered off the flame of the lamplight with a twitch of his finger, and let himself stride to the bed tucked to the farther corner. He didn’t bother fetching a change of clothes, and only took off his combat boots alongside his belt and his shirt. 

Salamander shrank further and its legs disappeared, looking more in the likes of a winged snake, if anything. It slithered and coiled in a small heap over Fuegoleon’s stomach, to his surprise, instead of sinking back to his body. Its wings retracted, and its unblinking yellow eyes, incandescent in the night, seemed directed to Fuegoleon. Under the warmth its mana gave off, his body sagged further into the bed.

The phantom pain of every attack he received, the sting of every scratch, the numbness of every bruise, caught upon him with the slowest, calmest sigh he’d release today. Back at the rescue efforts, he refused to receive any healing magic treatment. There hadn’t been such a need. The healing aid they had were already only a few, for the people in worse conditions scattered across the battlefield.

Salamander’s tail slid atop the sheets, shifting the silence of the room for the soft rustle of the blankets. Even at the tranquility of it, at the final quietness after one of the longest days of his life, Fuegoleon couldn’t summon rest.

Darkness swallowed him whole if he so much as drifted his eyes shut, speeding his heart almost instantly, as foolishly as it was to him now. Salamander rose unhurriedly to his neck, letting part of its loops rest over his collarbones, while the rest of the spirit slid over the top of his face. The pressure made his eyelids close instinctively. Fuegoleon didn’t voice questions, but the spirit could very well tell the confusion dripping from his mind. 

Salamander didn’t seem to fancy speaking much. Instead, it let its thoughts connect to Fuegoleon once more.  _ Darkness cannot pierce through your spirit again, fire-born. _ It spoke in a language Fuegoleon hadn’t heard before, ancient and resonant, reaching to his bones and onwards. Somehow he understood it perfectly.

It made his chest hitch and tighten. In his last fleeting thoughts, before he lost consciousness due to the blood loss, he’d wondered if he would live for the promises he had made to himself— to rest the captain’s robes over Leopold’s shoulders, and feel the beat of his brother’s proud heart beneath their coat of arms. To set the skies alight with a scorching white fire alongside Mereoleona, when he was able to surpass her. It robbed him of breath, and there was no mistaking that Salamander could feel in its scales the thin line of tears surging to the rim of his eyes— to question if he would find Nozel beside him, for the peace of his years, bridging their name again.

Even at his obvious fit of emotion Salamander stayed curled over him, its tail tickling his chest underneath his tunic. Back at the battle, the sheer purity of Salamander’s spiritual magic had reverberated inside Fuegoleon, replenished his force, coated him with senses so powerful he’d felt otherworldly, expanded and minuscule at the same time, as though he’d belonged to mana like no other being. Now, the mighty crackle of Salamander had tempered to a waft of warmth, intertwined with his own self, and called forth like a drawn-out touch beckoning him to get closer. 

His heart steadied beat, by beat, by beat, along with his breathing. Salamander’s soft glow, resting over his eyelids, guided him through. His mind unwound in a way that left him hanging on a flimsy strand of perception. He tilted what little remained of his consciousness towards Salamander, as the spirit outstretched its magic beyond their bodies, to the call of mana that surrounded them. 

No degree of meditation was able to make him feel like that, reshaped, woven anew by the mana. He was detached from his own skin, and he no longer paid mind to the give of the bed, the thump of his heart, the shift of his eyes. Slipped past his grounding, past the thoughts that anchored him, Fuegoleon found there was no reason for him to fear the dark.  _ Be calm, son of Vermillion, _ Salamander’s words glided into him. 

His senses broadened bit by bit when he released his magic. Attuned to the world instead of his own self, Fuegoleon felt mana flock around the people inside the estate. It weaved in and out of their bodies, outlining their presence, ebbing away when they shut their magic and flowing back to restart again. At the furthermost room from the Captain’s quarters, Mereoleona’s mana fizzled and whipped beneath her unwavering control, and she turned over her shoulder slightly, as though she was able to sense him. 

Salamander allowed him to reach farther. Past the estate, running like a quiet breeze through the corridors, past the chambers’ doors. And yet, sinking deeper into the feeling, letting the isolation take him whole, he wandered beyond the castle, in such a state the only thing he was certain of was his own name. Salamander surpassed the kingdom, not uttering a single word— there was nothing for him to understand. 

_ A thousand years in the ocean, and a thousand years in the mountains, _ his mother used to say, were what took a snake to transform into a dragon. Salamander sped past it all, descending below the very earth. In there, where he felt the rumbling of volcanoes pulsing through his body, amidst the molten fire, darkness was unable to reach them— burned by the stark presence of the mana’s white blaze. 

There, at long last, sleep came to Fuegoleon, and he welcomed it.


	2. Give us one more spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than a decade later, Nozel was consistently unapologetic about his affections— at least when it came to Fuegoleon, who could only open his arm to receive Nozel in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's really nice to see your kudos and comments. We're in for a small ship, but we make do, yeah? Also. This. Oh, it grew way more than what I was planning. Just brave through, if you must. My mind keeps spilling more ideas, sigh.
> 
> Unbeta'ed, the ton of mistakes are my very own.

Salamander and Fuegoleon reached an understanding of sorts— it all started because he couldn’t summon his arm properly. The mere thought got his neck warm; Fuegoleon wasn’t at the age where he could simply be bad at something out of inexperience. Where his creation magic had basic stability to maintain the form, it was his lack of finesse that dispelled the spell. There wasn’t another spell in his grimoire that could achieve it, nor was he able to use the arm outside of battle.

He was able to let go on the battlefield, using his arm as an extension of a weapon, akin to an staff, so he could manifest and release fire at will. He was a fighter at heart, born and raised a warrior, even with his royalty upbringing. And fight he knew how to do.

Salamander summoned itself out of Fuegoleon after he extinguished the remnants of another botched try. Unlike the day he woke up or the night thereafter, Salamander released enough power to make Fuegoleon invoke mana skin to protect himself from the onslaught of energy. The spirit’s form was massive, shaped to a fully-fledged dragon, with its claws the size of Fuegoleon alone. 

It was a funny picture, a creature this immense fitting within the training grounds. Surely it was a laughable matter only to him. 

Still, Salamander decided best not to talk directly.  _ This is the form I achieve by delving into the depth of your fire, and yet, it means nothing if it only runs freely. _

Fuegoleon bit back the urge to look downwards. It was a habit that would make Mereoleona’s thin patience vanish on the spot.  _ The ground doesn’t have the answer, Fuegoleon, _ she’d bark at him.

“Yes,” Fuegoleon replied out loud, “I cannot rely on fire alone for this.”

Salamander was the most prideful spirit, the tales often told, but he knew it was the sparse interaction with humans across the centuries that made them overlook how in fact Salamander’s wisdom ran twice as deep as its pride. 

“Mana manipulation is something you’re born with, in the Vermillion House. But this—” Fuegoleon let his shoulders fall. In the main family, where they were fire-wielders, they could conjure fire without a grimoire. It was proof of how attuned to mana they were. “My magic is too intertwined with fire to form something else.”

Salamander’s wings expanded towards the sky. It created an air current strong enough to make the trees shudder.  _ You forget the true roots of fire, son of Vermillion. The farther magic ventures from its source, the easier it forgets. _

Fuegoleon released a slow breath. “Teach me,” he said, opening his stance. He fisted his hand to keep the trembling at bay, “teach me how to reach the roots.”

The roar he heard, he thought at first, came from lightning. But there wasn’t a single sign of a storm coming in the sky. Salamander was  _ laughing, _ its chuckle deep and thunderous. “I’m not a teacher, boy,” it said out loud, in the language Fuegoleon didn’t know how he was able to understand.

“You taught our ancestors how to call forth fire,” Fuegoleon smiled despite himself. 

“That was a long time ago,” Salamander said with what sounded like a snort. It started to retreat back to his body in a whirl of bright magic.  _ I don’t remember a thing about you humans.  _

If anything, Salamander’s wasn’t underestimating itself: its teaching method relied on making Fuegoleon tire out, and little else. It woke him up  _ hours  _ before sunrise ascended upon the sky, taking him to the  Yultim Volcano Trail. He’d walk to the center of the crater, standing upright over the surface of the tallest rock in the hot water, and his training would begin. He had to thicken his mana skin in par with the lava slowly resurfacing, the temperature making his eyes dry so fast he let them drift shut without a second thought. Fuegoleon learned the lava progressed to its highest level in seven hours.

It forced him to control his mana release, to have the tightest rein over it, especially after he almost depleted his reserves after five hours of maintaining the skill. It was that or dying. It was a challenge to evenly distribute the mana, to quieten his body against the restriction, to ration for the inchmeal passage of time. Not once, Salamander lent him spirit magic. It meant he  _ couldn’t _ exhaust his magic in this training alone.

They returned in time for breakfast, but all Fuegoleon longed for was a restful night of sleep, after a week of going to the volcano at midnight every day. He’d eat twice as much as he usually did, and leave the estate for the work ahead as the captain of one of the rescue units.

He was back for a second round of training in the afternoon. Without an arm, he was meant to overcompensate with his left side after using his dominant side prominently all his life. He had to relearn how to write, unsheathe a sword, run and crouch and do everything without the instinctual reliance on balance. It was difficult to exercise mostly isometrically. 

It included two hours of fighting with Mereoleona, proven almost impossible during the first try. His sister cared none about the lack of his arm. She never pulled her punches, and forced him to invoke the fire arm more than once. His entire system grunted and tightened with him forcing more mana usage. She was impatient, arrogant, and she bellowed about his slowness as if it wasn’t taking him every ounce of will to remain upright and counterattack her speed.

He’d get a quiet dinner whilst a servant healed the deeper bruises or the occasionally broken rib. At the third broken nose, she told him it might have a funny angle from that point onwards. Fuegoleon was so out of it he only heaved a sigh. At seven sharp he was back in bed, with Salamander crawled on top of him until the spirit stirred awake five hours later, to begin it all again. 

At the end of the week, while they were returning to the estate from the volcano visit, Salamander said,  _ you still elude a refined form of energy itself.  _

It wasn’t something Fuegoleon wanted to hear, but it also wasn’t something he didn’t know himself. “I rely on my fire form too much,” he acknowledged with a whisper, “what comes before— I taught myself how to use it as an afterthought. Something I cannot give any other kind of shape.”

_ It is an energy your power transforms into your affinity. This is the truth magic abides by.  _ Salamander descended with a deliberate sway of its wings.

Fuegolon was tiring of the cryptical speeches. He knew, in theory, what he was lacking— he understood his deficits, but knowing where the mistake lied did only so much to help improve them. Salamander wasn't the type of teacher to run him through drills, correct his form, or explain a practical approach to a problem, much like he did with Leopold. The spirit didn't punch his face and broke his body down as Mereoleona did with him. 

It remind him of his own shortcomings during his younger days, some bittersweet taste lining at the edge of his frustration. He wondered, in sudden curiosity, if the other spirit hosts struggled as much as he did. 

It was during the small break after lunch that Salamander curled around his neck, in its winged snake form again, and talked under his ear about the other spirits. 

The wind spirit was within the Clover Kingdom, too, but Fuegoleon was aware of that already. It had shaped itself into a small sprite with girl-like features, and it was very protective of the boy with the four-leaf grimoire. Fuegoleon chuckled. 

"Are you protective of me, as well?" He whispered, good-humored nevertheless of his body trembling slightly from the exertion of the week. 

Salamander scoffed, biting the hand that was scratching the underside of its snoot. It was more of a show than real pain, the spirit didn't possess venom in its bite, but thin lines of blood still dribbled from the twin holes left behind by the fangs.

The water spirit was in the depths of the Heart Kingdom, but Salamander seemed indifferent about adding anything else. The earth spirit was still dormant, without a proper host— it had been centuries since Salamander had last seen them, when they reunited to awaken a volcano. In a few decades, they would meet again, to reshape the landscape once more. 

The break passed over Salamander sharing information in bits and starts, falling silent and beginning again. It stayed coiled in a loose loop around his neck, shadowed with his tunic and the long neck of his shirt, resting over his collarbones and shoulders instead of sinking back to his spirit. 

The rescue squad met with the reconstruction team after a week since the elves' invasion had taken place. They would update the commands drafted for the first-line knights based on where they stood currently. For them, a lot of the retrieval endeavor happened within the first five days, with them successfully finding survivors and tending the injured. 

Fuegoleon's squad was the second to arrive at one of the reunion's rooms of the Clover castle, beaten only by Nozel's squad. Salamander raised its head under his clothes, swiping its tongue briefly.  _ It's the mercury-wielder, _ it said inside their bond. 

Fuegoleon only caught Nozel’s robes billowing around him, whipping back when he rounded a corner, or retrieved with his squad once their meeting for the day was done. Unlike Fuegoleon, Nozel's abilities to shapeshift his magic were a huge advantage for the rebuilding plans. It meant they hadn't met in the same place yet; if they did, it was for anything that required more than one knight of captain-level— and the need for that was yet to arise, thankfully. 

In truth, they hadn't talked at all after their brief exchange back at the invasion. The squad Nozel was in charge of (knights that had a higher ratio of creation magic alignment, and magic most useful for rebuilding) worked well into the night, and it wouldn't just stop at the capital. After their meeting, it was decided that their units were to be deployed to farther locations also attacked, whether to help reconstruct or attend to the wounded.

The toll that such a big task left on the tightly numbered team was obvious by miles, especially on Nozel’s unit, with so few of them having trained versatility within their magic affinity, but Nozel himself hadn't lowered the slightest notch of that regal air about him, prim and correctly poised, his eyes at half-mast regarding the knights in an unbothered gaze. 

It didn’t matter. Fuegoleon had watched Nozel grow into the self he carried as the emblem of the Silva; the brunt of their work, then, had the subtlest of tells that could very well be a trick of the eyes. It wasn't good enough to fool him, because he'd looked at Nozel's direction all those years— attuned to him, as if Fuegoleon was built to tilt towards him the moment he walked into a room. 

Salamander, predictably, knew about Fuegoleon's feelings, interwoven to his consciousness as it was now. And true to its personality as a whole, it hadn't made any comment since Fuegoleon and his infatuation didn't hold its interest. The spirit stirred a second time from its spot, crawling upwards until its head hung outside of his shirt.  _ The mercury-wielder is following you, _ it thought, before descending back into his body.

Fuegoleon knew as much. Mana was more of a sentient, riveting form to him now that his oath with Salamander had broadened his recognition of it. As if seeing the world unravel through heightened senses, crafted to pick on the smallest shift of life surrounding him. It was easy to get lost on it all, acutely aware of this new layered perception. Yet where Nozel was involved, when it meant the sharper impression of him, of his presence and his mana, Fuegoleon couldn’t help himself.

He reached as far as the main corridor of the estate before Nozel caught up with him, walking by his left side. Fuegoleon gave him a sidelong glance, taking his hand without a single word spoken. With his quarters still occupied, he decided to take Nozel to his office instead. He had no need of having an affronted Nozel scowling at the tiny room he was sleeping in. 

Just as the door clicked shut, Nozel dove for Fuegoleon in a single, uninterrupted movement. More than a decade later, Nozel was consistently unapologetic about his affections— at least when it came to Fuegoleon, who could only open his arm to receive Nozel in. 

Nozel pressed his face into the skin where Fuegoleon's neck met his shoulder, Nozel's favorite place to be in when they were this near, and when he was particularly insecure about something. Saying that Fuegoleon liked to indulge him was an understatement from start to end. He let his hand stroke up and now Nozel's back, Fuegoleon's fingers dipping inside the soft slope of the center of his back.

Full of him, Fuegoleon drew in a long breath, anchored to this moment like no other thing could bring peace back to him. No other person. 

"I've missed you," Fuegoleon was the first to shake the silence loose, "you don't know how much."

Nozel retreated an inch or two, his lips a phantom touch over the edge of Fuegoleon's jaw. "You didn't come to me." 

_ Ah. _ That was it. He settled his hand at the back of Nozel's neck, sinking his fingers inside the fair locks. "Is that why you're like this?" 

For all that Nozel was royalty from the tip of his hair to his last drop of spilled blood, and that it meant his royal background took a fair share of his personality, he was inarticulate in ways that would make no sense to any outsider. Nozel was  _ born _ into voicing his needs and claiming for his standards to be met. Prepare this, fetch that— it was confusing that he wouldn’t speak what exactly was on his mind at times. 

Fuegoleon was well acquainted with this trait of Nozel, even if it gave them something to have a fit about from time to time. It was for that reason (the fact that he knew he’d have to make Nozel say the truth) that he moved his hand until he cradled Nozel’s right side of his face. “Tell me. I can’t read your mind.” 

Nozel had a loveliness about him that made its presence in the most unexpected of times. Whereas he acted standoffish for a good portion of the day, it was almost as though he didn’t realize the strength of his charm didn’t lay on that sleek, indifferent, classy beauty of his. It was this, instead, during the closeness they shared, at the moments his trusting heart got the best of him— when he looked younger than he was, cheeks tinged delightfully pink, and so, so enchanting it riveted Fuegoleon to the spot.

He was trying to stare Fuegoleon down with a scowl that matched his blushing, infuriatingly so. Fuegoleon was so besotted there wasn't a care in his body about the looming threat of Mereoleona if he were to be late for training today. 

Fuegoleon would meet this kind of Nozel the only way he knew how: with patience. Nozel didn't react positively to prodding. He ran his thumb across his cheek, closing the distance again to kiss the bone under Nozel's brows, trail to his forehead, the bridge of his nose, and everywhere else he could reach but Nozel's lips. It made Nozel squirm and sigh, his blush deepening. 

"You—" he started, at long last, drawing away a second time. His eyes never strayed, no matter how insecure Nozel felt. He was raised to never let them wander. "I was told you've been training an unholy amount of hours." 

"Yes," Fuegoleon answered honestly, "ten hours a day."

Nozel's frown grew sharper. His purple eyes had this contemptuous shine on them, low-lidded, no matter how embarrassed he seemed. "And that you're nowhere to be seen until early morning." 

“That is true,” Fuegoleon confirmed. He knew very well he wasn’t giving Nozel any easy way out. “It’s part of the training.”

“Why?” Nozel asked. His tone toed between questioning, and more than that. It ran deeper, as if there was something within his words, and that was where Nozel excelled at, whether Fuegoleon liked it or not. He knew Fuegoleon would fill the gaps and look for clues, which made Nozel and the whole affair with his upbringing make sense: he was raised to be understood right away, and Fuegoleon making him be outspoken about something he thought he could get away with by scowling in their general direction, well, that was a compromise in their relationship.

“It’s part of my training with Salamander,” Fuegoleon stated, knowing that Nozel knew the fire spirit by its name too. “I was chosen by the spirit, but I still can’t…” he trailed off.  _ Do what they ask me to do, _ Fuegoleon didn’t say. Nozel didn’t let his eyes trail towards his missing arm, but he knew very well the absence of it stood out, now. 

This time, Nozel took another step backward, fully planting distance between them. His blush was receding, too, and little by little his face started to give away less and less. Fuegoleon was about to call it quits and outright ask what was wrong with him, but Salamander moved from his innards, manifesting itself unpromptedly. It emerged from the length of his spine and ascended to reveal its head, digging its claws ever so slightly in Fuegoleon’s skin, until it sat on his right shoulder, a more slender, smaller dragon than all the forms Fuegoleon had seen it take. 

_ What’s wrong? _ Fuegoleon asked inside their bond. Salamander’s tail just looped around his torso. 

“Mercury-wielder,” Salamander spoke. It wasn’t that strange language Fuegoleon couldn’t identify, but still understood. It was human tongue, its tone guttural and deliberate. 

In all fairness, Nozel took it in stride—he showed little to no reaction, briefly narrowing his eyes before settling back in a blank stare. He did manage his emotions better than Fuegoleon did, who was looking between Nozel and Salamander with arched brows, trying to understand what Salamander wanted from Nozel so suddenly.  _ Salamander, _ Fuegoleon called. 

The spirit just ignored him. “Your magic wanders from the roots. It is a bastard of a bastard, a half of a half.” 

Fuegoleon reigned in a grimace, but only barely. Of all the things Salamander’s pride could say to Nozel, whose pride  _ might  _ actually compete to Salamander’s.

Nozel only blinked slowly, his arms still hanging idly by his sides. He was concealing his mana in such a tight hold, only Fuegoleon’s newfound affinity to mana and his all-time familiarity with Nozel were what made him capable to feel the subtle wave of it, or its distinct lack thereof. 

“Then it’s unfortunate,” Nozel said with a drawl, “that a half of a half still prevails over fire.” 

Salamander’s surprising hiss of laughter made both of them frown. It was a noise that ran chills in Fuegoleon, for how weird it was. “It is not an insult, mercury-wielder.” 

Nozel crossed his arms.  _ There it is, _ Fuegoleon thought. Nozel’s right fingers tapped against his arm twice. “Then?”

“Your magic has matrilineal heritage,” Salamander said, flapping its right wing in a wide arch, as to mimic a line. “your mother’s mana chose you to be the heir, instead of your sister, for whatever reason that is— this heritage dies with you.” 

Fuegoleon gazed at Nozel carefully. The first year of their relationship, during Lady Acier’s death anniversary, Nozel took them to stand in the balcony his mother fancied the most, in her room, the room that otherwise stayed locked the rest of the year. And in the quiet of the night, Nozel had said,  _ my mother had steel magic, as you now. As your sister knows. My grandmother had it, too, and that heritage stretches for thirteen more generations, of mothers and daughters.  _ He kept looking beyond the estate’s balcony, at the obscured gardens, and the extent of his grief seemed to reach past that.  _ Somehow, she knew I would be the only one with her bloodline attribute.  _

Something about Nozel made Fuegoleon ache to reach out, the phantom grief he carried with him larger than Nozel himself, sometimes, when it was too tangible to ignore. Still, there was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes on Nozel’s lips. He let go of his mana, treading across the room, circling around Fuegoleon’s own mana, a cold touch to his senses. 

“Yes,” Nozel replied, still staring at Salamander. Not once Nozel drifted his eyes to Fuegoleon. “I’ll see the end of her legacy.” 

Salamander huffed, letting out a billow of smoke. “You have mastered your bloodline and refined it at your will. And when time is right, your mana will trace back to its roots, and the children you sire will inherit the transformation of your legacy.” 

That time, Nozel glanced at Fuegoleon. Their eyes meet, then, because Fuegoleon kept coming back to him, to look at him, like Fuegoleon always did.  _ The children you sire. _ Certainly with silver hair and pale eyes, always resembling the Silva, because the Silva children took after their mother and only her.

Nozel dragged his eyes from Fuegoleon, before he could get a better read on Nozel. “I don’t suppose you’re sharing this information out of benevolence,” Nozel said, his voice giving nothing away. The feathers of his robes stirred minutely with the flow of his mana. 

“I have no interest in kindliness for a water-born,” Salamander replied, sounding amused and dangerous altogether, “but you shape your magic and bend it at will. It is loyal to your blood, even made of two halves. So you ought to teach the son of Vermillion.”

“What?" Fuegoleon instinctively questioned. Salamander’s tail tightened its coil around his chest. 

“I won’t hear otherwise.” Salamander declared. “Be warned of your actions, son of Silva. I am not afraid of water.”

They couldn’t utter another word before Salamander dissipated in a crackle of fire, returning into Fuegoleon in a rush of spiritual pressure that made him recoil, clenching his jaw. 

With the mood they initially had thoroughly in shambles, the two steps Nozel remained away seemed unsalvageable, now. 

“Nozel, I’m sorry—”

Nozel cut him off with a raised hand. “That was truly backwards.” he said, looking heavenward. “I don’t need a reason to wipe the floor with you.”

“Are you  _ considering _ it?” Fuegoleon couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. 

“Why, of course,” Nozel huffed, “you do have matters to learn.”

Nozel turned on his heels before Fuegoleon could make any attempt at coming closer to him. He opened the door, but remained under the threshold, tilting his profile towards Fuegoleon. 

“Will you tell me, then?” Fuegoleon asked. 

There was something soft in the pale violet of his eyes. “I thought there was something amiss, after you woke up,” Nozel explained, and his eyes didn’t stray, “You didn’t come to me. I thought— whatever I thought, you’re responsible for it.” 

There was a small, barely noticeable smile in Nozel’s face. Fuegoleon’s body sagged, surrounding to his own incredulity about all things. Nozel departed just like that, and yet, it took Fuegoleon a clamoring of his name (from Mereoleona no less) to remember he had somewhere else to be. 


End file.
